25 December 1942
Well, happy 82nd anniversary to this diary entry from Joan Wyndham, who “wrote with wit and exuberance of her love affairs, London during the Blitz, and her encounters with the likes of Dylan Thomas”:
My first Christmas in Scotland. I had behaved so well for the last few months, and everyone here thought I was such a nice, quiet intellectual little girl — but not any more!
We were up at the men’s Mess, and it was fantastic — colossal buffet, unlimited booze. I decided to break out and go on a jag. I can’t remember when I got so drunk or felt so exhilarated, except possibly when I went out with my dad.
I have an awful feeling I called the CO a stinker — it was one of those religious arguments about whether the popes had mistresses.
602, our international squadron, flew over for the party and parked their Spitfires practically in our backyard.
I remember waltzing and eating plum pudding simultaneously, and then being sick in the laurels.
A very nice pongo drove me home and wanted to kiss me but I said No, and he said God, what a swine I am trying to take advantage of a gel when she’s tight!
Her Grauniad obituary does make it sound as though she… enjoyed life.
(The ‘wit and exuberance’ line above, incidentally, is from her potted bio in Travis Elborough and Nick Rennison’s A London Year: Daily Life in the Capital in Diaries, Journals and Letters — which I clearly need to buy.)
And…
Today is also, of course, the day each year when Spike Milligan used to ring the porter’s lodge at Jesus College, Cambridge, and — when they picked up the phone and simply uttered the word “Jesus” — sing
Happy Birthday to you…
Or that’s the legend, at least. Unfortunately, a now deleted page on the university’s website tells it differently:
An old joke from celebrated comedian Spike Milligan alleges that one Christmas morning, a student who lived in College over the holidays phoned the Porters’ Lodge. When the call was answered with ‘Jesus’, the student sang ‘Happy Birthday to you’.
So, apparently, it wasn’t Spike, but a story he told — and almost certainly invented, what with him being a comedian and everything. It is true that Milligan fans often try to recreate the joke, but…
BLOODY SPOILSPORTS!
